UK-EU youth experience scheme: People first, or just spin?

The so-called reset talks between the United Kingdom and the European Union have, as Nic Mitchell recently reported, produced a joint commitment to a youth experience scheme and to discussions on a possible UK association with the Erasmus+ programme.

The youth experience scheme – handily abbreviated to YES – would allow the under-30s on both sides of the channel to enjoy a year-long cultural, education or work experience in a country other than their own.

According to Nick Thomas-Symonds, minister for European Union relations and the UK’s chief negotiator, such a scheme would mirror the UK’s existing schemes with Australia and New Zealand. The EU has a similar agreement with Australia.

Both sides have come a long way since April 2024. That was when the EU launched a proposal for a four-year scheme that would give young people such ‘experience’. The UK cried foul: that was freedom of movement.

The House of Lords, the research section of the House of Commons, and the energetic German Ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, have used their good offices to encourage the more constructive attitude that emerged in the reset talks.

Points to sort out

There are still important points to sort out. If the YES scheme is to be capped because of UK immigration fears (though one-year schemes don’t count in the statistics), what should the number be? What about the other requirements: a down payment for access to the health service, evidence of resources and no right to bring in dependants? What should the type of visa be?

The UK seems less keen on the possibility of an Erasmus+ association, although it was mentioned in the Common Understanding document of the reset, signed off on both sides.

Thomas-Symonds did not even mention the programme in the readout on the talks. For the UK it raises the old Erasmus problem that UK universities lose fee income on incoming students.

The European Movement, the body established in the aftermath of the Second World War to promote good relations among the democratic countries of Europe, has made some robust comments on both the YES proposal and a potential Erasmus+ association. They emphasise that the focus in both cases should be on young people who have historically been a minority concern – those from further education.

“The priority is to engage the plus element of Erasmus+, not the original university-oriented Erasmus,” says Alfred Quantrill, a first-year philosophy student and head of the youth section of the European Movement.

It’s not about the hospitality industry

The European Movement’s campaign manager Richard Kilpatrick, who has extensive experience in the education sector, says policy thinking must rise above the notion that these young people are merely needed to alleviate the challenges faced by the hospitality industry.

He talks of the spark of excitement that the YES scheme and Erasmus+ would generate to propel young people in both directions across the English Channel, saying: “There are the vast opportunities presented by overseas experience in education, training and, in the YES case, work experience, as we know from previous experience and from Erasmus summer schools with themes as diverse as teacher updating and prisoner rehabilitation.”

He is sceptical of the HM Treasury and vice-chancellors’ argument that Erasmus+ represents a financial loss. Even when considering a cost-benefit analysis, “it’s a win-win for local areas to have these young people around, and for the young people concerned,” he says.

The under-30s eligible for YES or eventually for Erasmus need proof that the UK and EU were not simply spinning when in the reset documents they talked about the mutual need for both sides to develop an ambitious relationship, which “puts people at the centre of the European Union-UK relations”. This is the chance for the UK and the EU to provide it.

Dr Anne Corbett is senior associate at LSE Consulting, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom. Her 2005 book Universities and the Europe of Knowledge (Palgrave) has a detailed account of how the Erasmus decision was developed and agreed.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.